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What 10 young people – curators created for the festival “Homo Novus” within the project “The Shake Down” (Part 2 – Festival programme in Latvia)

[Continuation of the project story] In 2022, the young curators (10 youngsters from Latvia and Norway) of the International Festival of Contemporary Theatre “Homo Novus” curated an extensive weekend programme at the cultural venue “MAZE” in Riga. The festival programme, independently created by Latvian and Norwegian teenagers, was dedicated to the theme of generational nostalgia and included a wide range of visual, performing, musical and interactive artworks that everyone could experience for free.

In the video young curators introduce with self-created programme in the festival “HomoNovus” (with subtitles in English and Latvian):

First day of the event

On Friday evening, 9 September, the gates of the Shake Down opened at 16.46 with a small performance, offering visitors the chance to visit several scenographic spaces and installations. In the depths of the cultural space, the interactive installation “(And) from one moon to another I jumped”, created jointly by Prague performing arts students and Riga children, was dedicated to the theme of dreams and nightmares experienced in childhood. Meanwhile, in another part of the building, you could experience “In Between” by scenographer Kristīne Kutepova, created in collaboration with the residents of the Riga social care centre “Gaiļezers”. Viewers could interact with the colourful, flowing installations dedicated to the theme of dissolving memories.

Throughout the duration of the Riga “Shake Down”, Māra Brīvere’s painting exhibition “Notes to Remember” was on display and the installation “The Fridge” by Chilean artist Cote Hana Zuniga was open, featuring gastronomic games that invited visitors to share personal food-related memories. But as the curators of “The Shake Down” wanted to trigger all the senses of the audience, smell was not forgotten either: in collaboration with perfumer Sigita Birzniece and soap artist Daija Lee, three nostalgic soap scents for different generations were created especially for “The Shake Down”, which could be found in different places in the festival premises.

As the well-being of the audience was important to the young curators, snacks were constantly available and a bar with cocktail recipes created by the children was open. Visitors who cared about their hair could make an appointment with the hairdresser Vlad at the interactive hair-cutting performance “Hair – stuck in time” and immortalise their hair in lasting souvenirs with the support of artist Linda Grant. “Hair carries a big part of a person’s identity. Hair holds our honour, our soul, different textures and ancient scents, and losing your hair can mean losing a part of yourself. We have invited hair and handicraft artisans to participate in this project, who will use visitors’ ‘lost’ hair to make a piece of jewellery to keep for a lifetime,” says curator Karu.

Friday night’s party featured unique DJs with nostalgic and energetic sets – Australian–Latvian Dj Afterglow, legendary British director and choreographer Dj Bush Hartshorn, as well as local DJ Katii or Katrīna Vēvere. For those who wanted a more relaxed experience, there was a retrospective video programme of performances put together by teenagers, as well as a recording of Elmārs Seņkovs’ 2015 performance “Mii Mii Generation” with a newly created addition, in which the young participants look back on themselves from a distance of seven years.

Second day of the event

The second day of “The Shake Down” started with a recording of the Latvian Puppet Theatre’s “Emīls un Berlīnes zēni”, followed by a video recording of the Norwegian “Riks teatret” performance “Mio, mans Mio”, and “Brands” directed by Arnolds Lininis, as well as the film “Time Bridges” by Kristīne Briede and Audrius Stonis. As a special bonus and an opportunity for visitors to get to know the curators themselves better, a “Curators’ Nostalgia Museum” was set up – an installation featuring 10 different objects selected and brought by the young curators of the event.

In the evening, the Latvian Puppet Theatre presented a performance for adults “I – Benjamin Button”, and later a group of storytellers and musicians (Elīza Dombrovska, Kirils Ēcis, Anna Klišāne, Ivars Krasts, Gerds Lapoška, Jurģis Lūsis and Kristiāna Bērza) gave their performance “Tuvie Tālie un Māja Kāja”, which left the festival crowd with words: “We dwell on the road and travel home, we dwell in stories and songs and in time become homes ourselves for stray stories and songs. We keep folding and unfolding, contracting and expanding, we run, stumble, stop, doubt, question and find ourselves running again. We have bitten ourselves in the tail.”

To be continued:

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